


Jaebum and Bambi

by peachpunch



Category: GOT7
Genre: M/M, Mafia AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2019-11-21 08:16:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18139709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peachpunch/pseuds/peachpunch
Summary: Three years after Havana, Jaebum returns with a whole new set of baggage.( Sequel to Jaebum in Havana )





	1. the comeback

After Havana, Jinyoung drifts for a year.

It takes only a day for the tiny boat to reach land, but Jinyoung still feels at sea, paddling with all his might, kicking his legs, trying to come up for air but never finding the surface.

Some days it's like floating and Jinyoung feels close to nothing: people are miles away, their conversations are like echos, drowned out by the waves; his days become a string of airports and cheap hotel rooms with lamps that don't work, televisions with one channel and bibles torn in half; distance becomes relative — traveling from one city to another takes the same effort as flying from one country to the next; he no longer feels the ground beneath his feet; he starts smoking.

Some days he feels like he's swimming: he pawns off Jaebum's jewelry, which fund his trips for the next year; he shaves most of his hair off, lets it grow new and clean; he showers with scalding water and scrubs his skin until it's red; he sits out in the sun until his skin burns and it peels off in patches and he feels like he's starting over, somebody new; he buys clothes, finds another profession; he listens to operas; he stops watching the news.

Most days, though, it feels like drowning.

A year after, he washes up in Belgium. The buildings look like a dream and at night, the whole country seems to stand still; nothing happens; Jinyoung fears little. He takes a job teaching Spanish at a small college, he finds an apartment, and, slowly, the person he once was starts to rot until he feels like a shell of a person — no flesh, just bones. Some days he looks in the mirror and he can't recognize himself and he likes that, enjoys the anonymity: he could be anyone; he could be nobody at all.

He keeps a gun in his bedside drawer and checks it every night, but after months this turns into every other night, then every other week, and two years after he almost died in a sandy beach in Havana, Jinyoung no longer finds a need for a gun. Most nights he thinks of Jaebum, dreams of finding him pushing a cart through glowing supermarket aisles, eating popcorn in movie theater lobbies, posing for pictures in front of old churches, fantasies so normal and mundane that when he wakes up to an empty apartment, his heart aches. The thought of Jaebum is like a flame, and the more he thinks of him, the more Jinyoung feels burnt, like his fingers have been charred; he starts to think of him less. A few months after, Jinyoung no longer dreams: he goes to sleep and wakes up, with only a glimpse of darkness between.

His neighbor is a pianist — Wonpil — and he is painfully kind, sometimes shy, often aloof. He greets Jinyoung every morning, with a smile, a tiny wave, the same quiet question: "How are you?"

Jinyoung wishes he could tell him everything: that he is dying, slowly, and that time has somehow stopped; that the seconds have stopped working, no longer tick on the clocks; that he is so unhappy that he wonders if he's ever been happy at all, or had just been distracted; that he thinks the love of his life might have been a criminal mastermind, that he misses him with an intensity he never knew he was capable of; that every cell in his body aches; that he is afraid of dark alleys, of people that stare too long in his direction; that he is afraid, above all, of being alone.

But Wonpil has a sweet smile, unassuming eyes, so Jinyoung finds himself saying, "Fine." He forces a smile the first morning, the second, but by the third, he no longer has to remind himself. He smiles in spite of himself.

It takes two weeks for Wonpil to invite Jinyoung over for coffee, and another two weeks for them to sit on Wonpil's tiny couch and watch a movie. Wonpil is careful when he reaches over to rest a hand against Jinyoung's thigh, and to Jinyoung's surprise, he tries nothing else. The movie ends with Wonpil's finger draped over the muscle of his thigh, not tight, not squeezing, just resting, as if waiting. Jinyoung goes home that night and looks in the mirror and studies himself, wonders who he is. Someone else stares back — someone with healthy skin, someone that gets enough sleep, someone that has a well-paying job, a nice apartment, a worthy suitor; someone with a good life.

Jinyoung decides to seduce Wonpil, little by little. He has all the time in the world, he thinks, so every time Wonpil knocks on his door, Jinyoung makes a point of taking off one piece of clothing. If he's wearing a tie, he takes it off, undoes a button; if he's only wearing a shirt, he takes it off, makes it look as though he were changing; sometimes his shoes are what goes, sometimes his jeans, sometimes shorts, sometimes tank tops, and each time Wonpil looks closer to reaching out to touch his skin. Each time Jinyoung feels closer to happiness.

Wonpil takes him out to movies, to the opera, to plays, to calm, relaxing events that make Jinyoung feel like he's floating again, not through the ocean, but through land, as if he's grown wings. Or, as if he's become a ghost. After their second date, Wonpil kisses Jinyoung good night in front of his apartment. They hug briefly, pull quickly away. Wonpil looks flustered and Jinyoung pretends to be happy — he's sure if he pretends, if he goes through the motions, that happiness will find him; like a bee looking for a patch of flowers to land on. After the third date, they kiss in Wonpil's car and Jinyoung makes sure to reach over into the driver's seat and fit his fingers between Wonpil's thighs; he rests his hand in the middle so his knuckles press against his groin, the line of his zipper; so he can feel Wonpil getting hard and so, by their fourth date, Jinyoung invites him into his apartment.

By the fifth date it feels like routine, Wonpil's fingers on his tongue, the creak of his bed, Wonpil's small, sleeping figure next to him. Sometimes he stays awake and stares at Wonpil and feels the sudden flood of guilt, as if he were corrupting him, ruining him. Jinyoung goes into the bathroom and looks in the mirror and his old self looks back, smiling, teasing. His old self says he doesn't deserve this new life, and he doesn't, but Wonpil keeps coming over, Jinyoung keeps stripping. Jinyoung keeps teaching and sometimes Wonpil picks him up, sometimes he doesn't. They are not dating, not officially, but sometimes Jinyoung makes Wonpil drive until they are surrounded by trees and they pull over to the side of the road. They fuck there, on top of the car, Wonpil's knees on the cold hood, Jinyoung's back smudging up the front window, and Jinyoung, despite the three years between himself and Havana and the year leading up to it, asks Wonpil to call him Bambi.

And he does, and each time Jinyoung begs him to, sometimes on the couch with Wonpil's fingers inside of him, sometimes in the kitchen when he's on his knees, Wonpil's cock in his mouth, his hands tangled in Jinyoung's hair, their breakfast burning on a pan, sometimes in an empty field with Jinyoung lying flat on a towel, their picnic forgotten on the grass, Wonpil sweating and bouncing in his lap, the name 'Bambi' starts tasting less and less like the past.

For their fifteenth date, Wonpil invites him to dinner before his recital and Jinyoung thinks that this is it: Wonpil will ask them to date officially, they will move in together, he will put his books on Wonpil's shelves, his toothbrush in the same glass, and they will eat together, every night. A simple life; a happy life. Jinyoung looks at himself in the mirror but he can't see the past him, or the future him. He seems not there at all, as if a blank face is staring back at him. He feels hollow joyous and hollow.

Wonpil arrives an hour earlier than when he said he would and Jinyoung, wearing nothing but underwear and a robe, still trying to follow traditions, lets the fabric fall open. Part of the robe slips off his shoulder and hangs off his elbow; he is almost naked, and he imagines how Wonpil will react; Wonpil who always admires him, but who fears him, too. Wonpil who knocks the door again so Jinyoung calls out, "Coming!"

Wonpil who's shaking when Jinyoung opens the door. He looks scared, his hands trembling, his eyes wider than Jinyoung has ever seen them. He does not admire him, he does not compliment him, he does not mention the robe, the underwear — the lack of clothing.

Someone else does, though.

After Havana, Jinyoung drifts for a year, washes up on shore after another, and just as he's come close to forgetting everything, rewriting his story, he hears Jaebum's voice rising up behind Wonpil.

"Bambi," he says and Jinyoung watches the barrel of a gun creep slowly from behind Wonpil's head, to his ear, pushing him aside so Jaebum comes into view, grinning with all his teeth, his eyes bright with excitement, "Glad to see you kept your figure."

Jinyoung's hand falls to his hip for the gun that isn't there, he steps back a few steps, his mouth hangs open. Three years fold into a single second and he tastes the ocean on his tongue, hears the waves, feels the ghost of Jaebum's hand on his neck.

Jaebum, meanwhile, pushes Wonpil into Jinyoung's apartment before he closes the door; he never puts the gun down, keeps it pointed at Jinyoung.

"Don't look so scared, Bambi," Jaebum continues and Jinyoung feels every single word in his bones, throbbing, "I thought you'd be happy to see me."


	2. jaebum .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soooooo here's another slow, introductory type chapter before the actual action begins.... hope u enjoy this..... alkfj.... sorry if it's bad.... also almost my bday so .... follow me on twitter @jjpsbf... i remade curious cat lmao

He hoped he would be angry.

So much time leading to this moment, to this reunion with his beloved Bambi, and he hoped he would be furious. That rage would force its way into his bones like an angry father stomping around hallways, swinging doors open, slamming them shut, tearing apart locks with a heavy hammer. He hoped that he would see red when he laid eyes on Jinyoung, that he would spit his name, would take off the safety from his gun and shoot him in a second, then turn to shoot Wonpil, too.

Rage is easier to understand, a straight line from thought to action. Anger leads to violence, a beautiful and simple formula, but instead he's struck by this strange whirl of emotions: nostalgia, joy, sadness, shock.

He thought he would have to fight the urge to kill Jinyoung but he fights, instead, the urge to cry, to weep, to throw himself down on his knees and kiss Jinyoung's feet, to take his hand, to touch him everywhere to make sure he hasn't been hurt, hasn't been starved, that he has been taken care of — just like they promised him.

He fights the urge to point at his arms, at his stomach, at the swell of his thighs, the thin ankles, and remind Jinyoung of every place Jaebum had left his lips on, as if the kisses were there, engraved: here, on the inside of his knee, the kiss from their vacation in Paris, the one that had left Jinyoung writhing, squirming with need and there, behind his shoulder, where Jaebum had left teeth marks, both trying to be quiet when they fucked in the stall of a museum bathroom.

He fights the urge to drop the gun, to open his arms, to yell, "I'm home" as if he were a husband returning from a day at work to his wife, as if three years had been eight hours, as if Jinyoung had been waiting for him, too.

He fights the urge to leave and never look back, to let them arrest him again — to call off this deal — because Jinyoung looks breathtaking. Three years of peace have kept him beautiful, stunning, have kept him identical to the image still lodged in Jaebum's heart like a bullet, no matter how many times he tried to forget him.

Oh — he'd tried.

Sitting alone in a dark cell, with only a bed, a toilet, a book he'd read four times, Jaebum had tried to forget Jinyoung. The ears, the eyes, the dark of his hair, how gold necklaces glittered in sheer want around him, desiring only to dress Jinyoung, to hang around his neck, to touch something more beautiful than itself; how the flowers perked up around him, wanting to be noticed, to be felt by such a creature; how even the moon seemed to dim when they spent nights together, as if accepting defeat, lending all its light to Jinyoung.

Sometimes he would picture himself slicing into his chest, taking out his heart, watching it throb and pulse in his hand before he tore it open and sliced away any memories of Jinyoung like he would cut away the fat from meat. Sometimes he would picture scraping his bones to get rid of the ghosts of Jinyoung's touch, and sometimes he would picture throwing himself into a fire, watching his world turn to smoke, wanting death over torture.

Because loving his Bambi is unbearable.

Knowing he's out there smiling, laughing, talking, the whole world a witness to his glimmer. It was never the torture that broke Jaebum, it was never spitting out blood for days, or not being able to see half the time from swollen eyes, or his bleeding finger when they'd ripped out his nail; it was never the threats against him that scared him — he knows blades, knows guns, has scars as proof. No, what broke Jaebum, a criminal mastermind, a mafia leader, a man who'd seen more dead bodies than a mortician, was the thought of Jinyoung walking into the world alone, slipping through his fingers; what broke Jaebum was thinking Jinyoung would never come back to him — and if he didn't reach out and hold tight, then it would be his fault.

What broke him was love rotting away into obsession. 

So he broke, confessed. With each new confession he made new enemies, but with each new confession he made leaps towards a limited freedom. A freedom that consisted of so many rules, so many names, a sloppy mission penned by hands that had never held a gun before. But it was a freedom that allowed him this: to find Youngjae, to get an update on Jinyoung, to learn what had been happening for these past three years.

That freedom led to this: finding Wonpil in the parking lot, pointing a gun to his head, making him lead Jaebum to Jinyoung not because he didn't know where he lived, but because he wanted to be angry. He wanted to see this unassuming man, the one who'd been seeing Jinyoung, the one who'd managed to squirrel into his heart.

That freedom led to this: Wonpil knocking on the door, Jinyoung opening it, almost nude, glowing in a way only he could. Pulling Jaebum in like the moon pulls at water, forms waves, lifts them only to throw them against the shore. Blinding him from rage he was so sure he would feel. Filling his stomach, instead, with emotions, as heavy as rocks, as warm as the sand at noon.

He kicks Wonpil inside and steps closer to Jinyoung — to his Bambi — and that's when Jinyoung faints. It happens quickly: Jaebum pulls at the trigger so it clicks, then Jinyoung's legs are bending, his back curving, his entire body limp and Jaebum drops the gun and leaps to catch him before he falls.

He thought that touching Jinyoung would burn him but he finds that it does the opposite. Touching Jinyoung is soothing, picking him up, throwing him over his shoulder — these are things he knows. This is what he dreamed about in prison, but the image had always been shaky and felt like crossing a flimsy bridge — the more he wanted to cross, the more it fell apart. But he finds that Jinyoung is real under his fingers. He touches the back of his thighs, holds him in place, feels the weight of him on his shoulders, his limp arms brushing against his back gently.

Then he notices Wonpil still there, shaking, and Jaebum pictures him bleeding, writhing, each second leading closer to death but he also remembers that this is what Jinyoung chose — this is what made Jinyoung happy. So he looks at the gun by his feet, then at Wonpil, attempts a smile.

"It's a fake gun," he lies, "Just wanted to surprise him."

Jaebum starts to walk towards the room in the back but then he pauses, turns back to Wonpil, still shaken but no longer terrified.

"But if you call the cops I can make it real."

And just like that, Wonpil starts to tremble again.

—

For a long time, Jaebum looks at Jinyoung sleeping, as peaceful as always. He doesn't stir, doesn't stretch, the air around him as still as a tomb. It was because of this that Jaebum was convinced Jinyoung was royalty, that if he were to look in his lineage, he would find kings and princes, complicated titles that meant lavish dinners, silk, silver, elegance so thick that it ran in the blood. And Jaebum thought of himself as a king — still does — and with each gift he'd lifted Jinyoung closer to his throne.

Jinyoung sleeps on his side, the top leg bent, as if trying to hug something, and Jaebum tugs on his robe so he can see his shoulder, his nipple, the indent of muscle on his chest. He pulls it back so he can see Jinyoung's arm, his shoulder, the deep crease of his collarbone.

He means to take the entire thing off but he hears rustling outside and remembers Wonpil. He looks at Jinyoung one last time, in the dark, at the curve of his figure, and he wants to pretend that he isn't who he is so he can slide into bed with him and sleep, too.

But he takes another breath and steps outside. Wonpil is pacing around the living room, though he stiffens when he sees Jaebum.

"Are — are you a friend of Jinyoung's?" Wonpil asks and even his voice sounds flimsy, like Jaebum could reach over and take the whole thing out, snap it in half like the bone of a small animal.

"No," Jaebum answers, lets himself fall on the couch with a quiet thump, "More like... business partners."

"What kind of business —? Jinyoung — he never — I haven't heard of him doing business."

Wonpil looks small and Jaebum feels guilty, though he has to wonder what Jinyoung saw in him. How normal he is, Jaebum thinks, and how simple his features, everything sturdy, compressed, not a single bone out of place.

"Jewelry," he says, finally, after Wonpil looks pained, straining under Jaebum's gaze, "We were in the jewelry business."

"Alright."

Wonpil starts pacing again, then looks at Jaebum, then the door.

"I need to go talk to him," he says but Jaebum doesn't even bother to look at him again. He takes out the knife from his boot and starts to play with it, swinging it from side to side, watching it slide open and snap shut. Wonpil, meanwhile disappears into the hallway and Jaebum hears a door close.

He's in there for a long time, so much that Jaebum's knife falls into his lap and he sighs, hoping for a nap himself. Then comes the sound of a door opening, closing again, and tiny footsteps, like a rat scurrying the halls. Wonpil heads straight for the door, but when he wraps his fingers around the knob, he turns.

"I apologize for being scared," he says, "Jinyoung told me you have a unique sense of humor. It's nice to meet an old friend — I can't say I've heard much about you, but Jinyoung is very private, as you may know."

Jaebum snorts, puts his hands behind his head.

"Of course," he says, "Jinyoung loves his secrets."

Wonpil looks pleased, bows his head just an inch, then he opens the door and leaves. In the silence that follows, Jaebum makes out the sounds of movements in the bedroom; the creak of a bed, followed by footsteps, by fabric sliding; the door locks, then unlocks, and then, finally, Jinyoung comes out of the room.

"I don't know what you're doing here but you have to leave," Jinyoung says, barely coming into view, already dressed and pointing to the door, "Now."

"Bambi, Bambi, Bambi, I thought I told you how to treat guests."

"Don't call me that," Jinyoung says, furious now, his eyebrows pushed together, a face that never appeared in Jaebum's fantasies. Faces of pleasure, sure, sometimes of sadness, of course, but never anger. Jinyoung is ungrateful, yes, but Jaebum thought he matured. _Bambi_ , he thinks, always full of surprises.

"Or what? You're going to try to kill me again? Set me up? Frame me?"

"You — you can't just come back after three years — just leave me alone."

Jinyoung turns around and heads to the kitchen and Jaebum stands, takes the few steps towards the counter, sees Jinyoung's head hanging, his figure paused in front of an open drawer. He looks sad, Jaebum thinks, and he gets closer to console him but Jinyoung turns around and points a knife at him.

"Don't get close to me, don't touch me, just leave."

But Jaebum had grown up with these situations, these threats; the moment he was old enough to know his mother could be hungry and bruised and no one would care, he'd been thrown in front of countless knives at the hand of angry men; then knives turned to guns, a single man turned to mobs; Jinyoung is royalty, yes, but Jaebum isn't. Jaebum is what royalty pretends doesn't exist. Jaebum is what fills their nightmares. 

So he steps closer, and Jinyoung points the knife again, shakes it a little as if he were an animal trying to scare a predator away. But Jaebum doesn't mind, he likes the fire in Jinyoung's eyes — it reminds him of the past, the shining past where he was king, and he doesn't mind the pain in his fingers when he reaches for the knife, steady and slow, and wraps his fingers around the blade. Then he tightens them, doesn't bother to look at the blood that sprouts from his palms because he can feel it running down his skin. The pain isn't sweet, but the change in Jinyoung's eyes is: that anger, that rage, melting slowly into fear, those thin eyes widening until they are round and glittering and brown — doe eyes.

"You little fucking brat." Jaebum spits each word, his jaw tense, his head throbbing with hate. He pulls the knife from Jinyoung's hand, not that there's any resistance; Jinyoung's arms fall to his sides and he tries to step away but his back hits the refrigerator. In a second, Jaebum is pressing up against him, his arm at Jinyoung's neck. "Ungrateful as usual, Bambi."

"Fuck off," Jinyoung answers, doesn't miss a beat.

"I should cut off your tongue."

"Why don't you?" and then Jinyoung smiles, grins like he used to, "Maybe I'll cut yours off first."

Jaebum presses harder, until Jinyoung coughs like something's stuck in his throat; until his face starts to redden; until it's hard to breathe.

"I should kill you, too, but I need you, Bambi. I have to find something someone stole from me and you are going to help me."

Jinyoung shakes his head, tries to tap into the anger from before but Jaebum's eyes are wide and he leans his face in suddenly and Jinyoung winces, turns to the side. His hands rise and grip Jaebum's forearm, trying to pull him away, trying to find space to breathe.

"I'm not helping you," Jinyoung breathes, choked, "I'm not part of your world anymore."

Jaebum pulls his forearm back just enough to let Jinyoung gulp in air, for him to cough, to recover in shallow breaths. And after, neither of them say anything, just stare at each other, as if they would find the answers in their eyes. Jinyoung, though, is as unreadable as ever — so much time keeping secrets, he's a natural.

"It's not a choice, Bambi. You have to help me," Jaebum says, low now. He can see each individual eyelash framing Jinyoung's eyes; he can see the quiver in his lip; his flared nostrils; the mole near his mouth; even his teeth glisten with so much detail that Jaebum wants to reach over and place his tongue there, study the little ridges with touch and taste.

"I don't have to do anything," Jinyoung says and Jaebum almost laughs, "I told you — I'm not part of that anymore. I don't do that, not for you, not for anyone. Why can't you just let me be? I'm happy, Jaebum."

"You don't get it, do you? You can't leave this world, not unless you die."

Jinyoung's eyebrows furrow — he looks scared, confused, and Jaebum feels relieved. This he knows: the panic of someone who's brushed up against death, knowing everything could end in a second — one misfired shot, one wrong step, one persistent enemy.

"How did you find me?"

"I've always known where you are."

And when Jinyoung remains confused, Jaebum continues, "I told you I would take care of you, Bambi. What? You thought you could just walk away from all that mess and have no one following you? Did you think three rings were going to fund all that traveling? You think someone would give you a job at your age without providing any history? You think you can afford this apartment teaching two classes a week — come on, Bambi, you're smarter than this. You didn't notice them, did you? My men watching you? Sometimes I would tell them to stare at you for too long, try to send you a message. They were letting you know that I was watching, Bambi."

Jinyoung's face twists around a frown, as if trying to make sense of strange weather. Finally, after a second, Jinyoung purses his lips and spits and Jaebum feels the warm splatter of saliva over his lips, dribbling down his chin, even on the tip of his nose.

"Fuck you," Jinyoung whispers and Jaebum is so close that he can feel it, like a humid breeze, like the wind on a sunny beach in Havana. He doesn't rage as Jinyoung might have wanted, he doesn't walk away in defeat, he doesn't drop his arms and apologize. Instead he puts more weight on Jinyoung's throat until his fingers dig and claw into Jaebum's skin and then, watching Jinyoung's wide eyes light up with panic, Jaebum licks the spit from his lips. He swallows.

Then the phone in the living room rings and Jinyoung kicks Jaebum in the groin and their bodies untangle. Jaebum bites his lip, winces in pain and Jinyoung runs to the phone and picks it up. He sounds out of breath, as if he'd been running, and whoever is calling him notices.

"No, I was just trying on clothes too fast — I must have been out of breath. Still woozy from fainting... No, he's not here... Yes, he invited us to dinner... No, I don't think we should go... An old college friend... No, no, I still want to go — are you coming now?"

Once Jaebum recovers, once his stomach isn't heavy with pain, once the nausea pulls apart like empty clouds, he leans against the kitchen counter and watches Jinyoung talk on the phone. He sits as usual: prim, proper, his knees together, his back tall and curved slightly, accentuating the fullness of his hips. He cradles the phone receiver with both hands, as if afraid to drop it — or afraid someone will snatch it from him.

Poor Bambi, Jaebum thinks, not knowing that life isn't their choice. Some things are decided for them — he tried to say no to doing this, too, but there are never enough options in life. No one can have everything they want, even princes.

"Okay, I'll be downstairs soon... Okay," Jinyoung turns to look at Jaebum, to stab each of his words into Jaebum's heart like little, metal pins, but it's been so long that Jinyoung has forgotten: Jaebum doesn't have a heart, not anymore, not after tonight, "Wonpil — I love you."

Jaebum doesn't react, instead steps back into the kitchen, goes to the sink and turns on the faucet. He washes away the blood from his cut — it's shallow, bloodier than it is serious — and he is struck by how domestic it all seems: he could be washing anything, the red-stained water could be soap, and then he looks up, Jinyoung is pulling on his coat, not even glancing his way, and even this is domestic. As if they didn't have to see each other right now, as if Jinyoung were only going to retrieve the mail, then return to his spot on his couch, his posture neat, the television playing a movie. As if Jaebum were going to join him with a meal, as if they had met under different circumstances, different times in their lives, everything could have been different.

He can only dream, he can only hope, because life has chosen a different path for him. Life has hardened him, made him cold, no matter the different fires that rage and swirl inside of him, he'll always have frozen exterior — like metal dusted with ice.

Jinyoung turns to look at him one last time, his hand on the doorknob.

"You better not be back here when I come back," he hisses, then quieter, "It was nice seeing you."

And just like that, he's gone. Out of the door, out of Jaebum's life, but he saw this coming. The rejection, the pretense of a happy life. He saw this coming so he prepared, and he did well. He takes his time drying his hands before he, too, walks out of the door, follows Jinyoung's path down the stairs, towards the parking lot.

Jinyoung pauses on the edge of the sidewalk, waits for Wonpil to arive. Jaebum is behind him when Wonpil's figure appears under a streetlamp, walking across the asphalt of the parking lot — mostly empty — and it's here that Jaebum reaches forward and wraps an arm around Jinyoung's neck, clamps his uncut hand over Jinyoung's mouth. Jinyoung writhes, tries to fight him, then goes completely still when Wonpil stops in the middle of the parking lot.

Three motorcycles enter from the left and surround him, a circle that tightens as Wonpil looks around, nervously, then straight to Jinyoung and Jaebum's direction — he looks scared, heartbroken. The motorcycles ride so close that it seems like they'll crash, but instead one rider reaches out an arm and snatches Wonpil and the motorcycle tilts, Wonpil's legs kick, but it manages to stay upright. Just as quick as they'd arrive, they're gone.

Jinyoung stops struggling and Jaebum feels something warm on his fingers. For a second he thinks it's blood — his own — but he looks down, where a drop of blood is curling against his finger onto Jinyoung's shoulder. Only when he pulls him away, places him against the wall, does he realize Jinyoung is crying, heaving. His eyes are wet, his cheeks, the tears rounding out of his lips, and seeing him like this, ravaged by grief, Jaebum feels something inside of him break. Something small, something pulsing. Something that makes him feel like crying, too.

And Jaebum thought he could be angry.


	3. bambi .

He does not remember going back to his apartment.

He remembers leaving it, remembers waiting on the edge of the sidewalk. He remembers his smile when he caught Wonpil walking under a streetlamp and he remembers the relief that this new life — a life away from danger and blood and everything he had decided to leave behind — was returning to him. He remembers the motorcycles, remembers the fingers clamped on his mouth as he tried to scream, as sobs thundered through him. He remembers crying, slumped against the wall, looking up and seeing Jaebum there.

Now, as he looks up from where he's sitting on the couch, Jaebum is still there. He doesn't look pained or worried, just bored, and Jinyoung has to look down at the floor to keep from crying again. Not that he can. He's tried, sitting on the couch, to cry, has tried to sob, but no matter the effort, his eyes have dried up, his body no longer reacts. There's no more mourning left inside of him.

"You did this," he hears himself whisper. He struggles to stand but manages, closes the distance between him and Jaebum in a few steps. His arms rise, his hands tighten into fists, but he is too weak to fight. He simply attacks and Jaebum grabs his forearms, steadies him out, keeps him from falling. "This is all your fucking fault — you're the reason they got him — what the fuck did you do?!"

"Bambi," Jaebum says, quietly, almost a whisper, and Jinyoung can't help the feeling of time turning back. The seconds fold into themselves, years become breaths, he finds himself thinking back on four years ago, the first time he'd met Jaebum. Except he doesn't feel like himself, no, it feels like the roles are reversed: this time it's Jaebum that knows too much, that says so little, and it's Jinyoung that's left to deal with the consequences. It's Jinyoung that gets pushed into a situation he never asked for, dangerous, dark, a pit full of writhing snakes.

"Don't call me that," Jinyoung hisses, but Jaebum says it again and, to his own surprise, he starts to cry, "Please — please don't call me that."

Jaebum, again, does not look worried, does not look sad. He looks, simply, at Jinyoung's eyes, at the shape of his nose, the way his entire face crumples around a frown. Then Jaebum smiles — a sideways shape — and says, finally, "Isn't this what you wanted? He's gone, now we can be together."

Jinyoung knows that he can't hate Jaebum, that part of him will always be attached to him. That a year spent with him gave him a lifetime of memories to dream about, to look back upon, to unfold and trace his fingers over but it also gave him a lifetime of nightmares. Each memory had a price, each rose had a thorn, and even if he can't hate him, Jinyoung's heart beats with something similar. Something that sounds like hate, that pounds inside him with the same violence.

"You don't get to do this," Jinyoung says, now through gritted teeth. His frown has rotted into something uglier, something sinister. Something he thought he had left behind, but that comes rushing back now. "You don't get to leave for three fucking years and just come back like nothing — I have another life — you had your chance."

Jaebum's smile unravels, reveals anger beneath it.

"I took care of you," he answers, loudly, "You almost killed me and I still took care of you."

His fingers tighten around Jinyoung's arms, his nails dig into his skin, and Jinyoung has to flail to get out of his hold. They stand a foot apart, both of them breathing heavily, both of them one wrong word from tearing into each other.

"That doesn't mean anything," Jinyoung says, less loudly, but still holding his ground. Jaebum, though a few years younger than him, looks older; more mature; more worn by life and Jinyoung feels guilty. He used to think Jaebum deserved everything that came his way, used to believe that things were black and white: Jaebum was evil, deserving of punishment, and Jinyoung was good, apt to deliver said punishment. But where would that leave him? He'd finally found a simple, happy life, and that had all been ruined in one night — wasn't he good? Didn't he deserve happiness? To finally rest?

But no matter how many times he blinks, Jaebum is there, breathing through his nose, his jaw tense, his fists trembling like he's trying to hold back, like he's a second away from exploding, looking like every nightmare Jinyoung has ever had.

"It doesn't matter," Jinyoung continues and Jaebum stiffens again, bristles like a cat, "You don't own me, Jaebum. No matter how many things you buy me, no matter how much you take care of me, no matter what you do — I'm not yours to keep. You don't get to abandon me for three years and expect me to be happy you're back."

His words hang between them, swing back and forth like a pendulum, and Jaebum doesn't react, not at first. Jinyoung watches his expression change: anger to surprise to sadness to anger again. He reaches forward, grabs the front of Jinyoung's shirt with two fists and throws him against the nearest wall. Jinyoung's breath escapes and leaves him empty, he gasps when Jaebum pushes him up against the wall, still glowering, his eyes inky black and opaque — they look endless, infinite, without a single trace of light. It makes Jinyoung tremble.

"You don't fucking get it, do you? I own you. I own your little apartment, I own your little job, but I especially own you, Bambi. After all the trouble you've caused me — you don't get to wash your hands of me just like that. You're going to pretend to be my partner, you're going to help me find this thing, and then you can go back to playing fucking house."

Then he pauses, and something remarkable happens: Jaebum hesitates. It's subtle, but Jinyoung notices, he has to notice because the Jaebum he knows — the Jaebum he knew, perhaps — does not hesitate. This new Jaebum lowers his gaze and the anger softens, flickers into another emotion, fleeting enough that Jinyoung does not recognize its shape, just its presence. Then he looks back up at Jinyoung, the anger returning in swift strides.

"They took him as security. If you want him, you have to help me."

—

Jinyoung does not think of Wonpil for the next two days, not really. The memories are there and he goes through them, but they don't feel real, they don't feel immediate. They remind him of pictures in a photo album, but from someone else's life. That couldn't really be him kissing Wonpil, that can't be him making him breakfast, that can't be them in bed together, holding hands.

Slowly, he feels himself slipping into an old life, into old habits. Jaebum sets him up in a hotel room one city over and he pretends, again, to be Jaebum's boyfriend, just like he used to. He pretends like he doesn't hear what Jaebum and Youngjae discuss in the front seat, pretends like the clothes he wears — tight, black pants, an expensive belt, a shirt with only a pair of buttons done that leave most of his chest and stomach exposed — were his choice. He could be going anywhere, he thinks. The opera, the movies, the clearing in the forest Jaebum took him once to teach him how to shoot a gun.

He finds comfort in this realization: he's acting. He's acting until Wonpil is free, until he himself can be free of this role to step into another, a simpler one that advances not with guns but with slow, melodic dates that follow a pattern. A role where he is a teacher, he is a lover, nothing more, nothing else.

And Wonpil, well, the thought of him becomes less and less concrete, as if the memories were hiding from him, scared by this new Jinyoung. Only one remains in full clarity: Wonpil waking up after the first night they spent together, looking rushed, scared, searching for his phone that kept buzzing and buzzing.

He goes over this memory again and again, starting with Wonpil's eyes opening, ending with Wonpil excusing himself and going into the living room to talk. He goes over it like he would a rosary, running each bead between his fingers, counting under his breath, praying halfheartedly to a god that won't listen.

Then Youngjae takes a sharp turn and Jinyoung, not bothering with a seat belt, slides from one end of the backseat to another. He makes a small noise and Jaebum turns around. Their gazes tangle; Jaebum's eyes have softened, but have returned to the unreadable. Jinyoung looks away and keeps counting under his breath.

By the time they arrive, Jinyoung is distracted but immersed. Once again, he's Jaebum's whore, something pretty to look at, nice to hold on to.

"What are we doing here?" he asks when he sees a nightclub from the window.

"You're about to get a lead," Youngjae says and drives past the busy front, around to the back entrance. Here it's dark, nothing more than a door lit by a single, bare bulb, a body in a suit guarding it. The rest is concrete, cold and industrial.

Jinyoung drinks in the scene, tries to imagine himself going inside, picturing what he might say, how Bambi might act but when Jaebum goes around to open the door for him and when Jaebum takes him by the hand to help him out, he realizes that performing is easier than it seems. He doesn't have to think as the man opens the door and the music spills out in a thumping wave, he doesn't have to think when Jaebum wraps an arm around his waist, leads him with a hand gripped tightly around his hip.

The nightclub looks just as industrial as outside, almost entirely dark except for glowing corners. The dance floor lights up from time to time in flashes of blue, bursts of green, and the two bars on either side of this large room are lit by black-lights. Jaebum leads him to one of the corners, the one higher than the others, elevated and with a little staircase; the one least cluttered with light. When they get closer, though, he understands why: the corner is roped off and hidden behind a curtain of beads, then a single sheer, white curtain, and then a thicker one made of velvet but cut into pieces.

Again, the men guarding it glance at Jaebum and pull open the rope, then the curtains. Jinyoung steps inside the makeshift room and sees a stranger on the couch against the wall. The entire space is lit in a glaring neon blue, bright enough for Jinyoung to squint, but dim enough that everything looks softer than it is. Opposite the stranger is another couch, a table between them dusted in powder and crowded by a few bottles stabbed into buckets of ice, a few small glasses and stray limes. The stranger is handsome in a stern, intimidating way, but once he takes a look at Jaebum his entire face changes. He smiles, and rather than making him look macabre, it makes him charming, it makes him look silly, even younger. Each piece of his handsome face is still there, just scrambled, like a puzzle coming undone.

"Jaebum!" he yells, the music from outside still drumming in their ears.

"Taecyeon," Jaebum says, simply, and Jinyoung goes to sit on the empty couch. Once there, Jaebum sits next to him and pulls him closer. Jinyoung leans into him, rests his head on his shoulder, looks as pretty as he can — a routine he learned from dating Jaebum for so long. A routine he ached for in dreams for an entire year, a routine he thought he'd hidden well but it comes back now, resurfaces along with the need to rest his hand on Jaebum's thigh, to feel him there, warm and alive and real.

"Who's this?" Taecyeon asks and Jaebum snakes his arm around Jinyoung again, lifts Jinyoung's shirt from the back to skate his fingers along the shape of his lower back, to let them sneak into the top of his pants. Jinyoung lets out a breath, but the sound of the music swallows it.

"My fiance," Jaebum says and Jinyoung's blood runs cold. He wishes he could lift his hand away from Jaebum's thigh, wishes he could punch him, confront him for making him panic and fret. For teasing him with a future that could have been, that seems possible now, just outside of his reach.

But then he thinks of Wonpil again, goes over the rosary of his smile, the hymn of his voice, and he lets his eyes flutter closed. Jaebum's fingers go further past the hem of his pants, teasing above his ass now, but Jinyoung pays no mind. He goes numb.

"He's pretty," Taecyeon says and the sound reaches Jinyoung as an echo. This, too, was routine, slipping away from conversations, letting Jaebum talk business, playing dumb as though he didn't know exactly what they were talking about, from the names down to the trade routes.

And he does this now: listens to the music in the background, lets Jaebum and Taecyeon's voices melt into it, as if they were part of the background, this complex landscape of sound. He lets his hand rise on Jaebum's thigh, each time closer and closer to his groin, regardless of Taecyeon across from them, his leg bouncing insistently. Regardless of the club around them, of the men by the entrance to the curtains, of the possibility of so many eyes on them — this was the power of Jaebum. He did business and drank and fucked in the same breath, fearless and reckless, so high on his power that he made others feel it. He could grope Jaebum's crotch and it would only make him happier, would make Taecyeon feel less than — or it would have.

Three years is a long time to be out of the business, and rather than ignore Jinyoung like others would have years ago, after what seems like ages of talking, Taecyeon calls for him.

"Fiance," he says, still screaming, always too loud, "Come take a shot with me."

For a second nothing happens. He think he's heard wrong but then Jaebum's fingers slip out from where they'd been groping him absently, almost out of comfort, almost tenderly, and when he looks at him, Jaebum nods in Taecyeon's direction. He smiles, too, but it feels fake; Jinyoung recognizes the forced corners, the way his eyes aren't in it.

"Go on," he says, and pats Jinyoung's back and Jinyoung stands up, walks over to the other side, sits down on the spot of the couch where Taecyeon is patting excitedly. Then Taecyeon leans forward and pulls out a bottle from the ice. He pours two shots into a pair of small glasses, hands one to Jinyoung, then clinks them together.

"Go," he says and throws his head back and takes the shot. Jinyoung does the same, but it's been so long that he's drank — the alcohol burns going down, stays warm in his throat, in the base of his stomach, and he's sure his face looks twisted. But just as he's done with the shot, Taecyeon pulls him into a kiss.

In itself, the kiss is brusque and rough and messy — Taecyeon's tongue is clumsy and his fingers rip the two buttons on Jinyoung's shirt. He rubs and grabs at Jinyoung's chest, squeezes it so tightly that it stings but still, Jinyoung finds himself kissing him back. He reaches for Taecyeon's thigh with his hand but finds his groin instead, squeezes it regardless, makes out the shape of Taecyeon's cock bulging against the zipper of his jeans, already hard, seemingly pulsing with the music.

At first he tells himself it's an act, that this is what someone in his position would do, but he knows it's because Taecyeon is a stranger. Taecyeon could be anyone, he could be Wonpil, could be Jaebum, and his hands could be anyone's, too. The thumb playing with his nipple could be Wonpil's and the hand grabbing his ass could be Jaebum's, and for a moment they are — for this brief, wondrous kiss, Jinyoung's lives come together.

Jinyoung, who is so used to cramming his thoughts into drawers, into never letting them breathe, lets these locks fall apart. For this kiss, for this stupid little meeting of mouths, he imagines that the lips on his are Wonpil's, that the teeth his tongue grazes against are Jaebum's. He imagines both bodies as one, and for a moment he's happy — he doesn't have to pretend, doesn't have to choose, just simply exist. But the longer the kiss lasts, the more Taecyeon lowers the hem of his pants, the more he pinches his chest, the less Jinyoung can pretend.

This can only be one person, he thinks, and right when he's on the verge of a choice, right when his heart's been loosened enough to prefer one set of lips over another, the ghost of one pair of hands, Taecyeon pulls away and starts to laugh.

"That was hot," Taecyeon sputters and when Jinyoung turns to Jaebum, instead of a scowl, he finds that blank stare that still bothers him. He lacks expression, lacks color, but when Jinyoung looks down at Jaebum's lap he can see his hand there, rubbing over his groin, at the clear outline of his bulge.

Jinyoung manages a smile and stands, walks around the table, settles next to Jaebum again. Without a word, Jaebum takes his wrist, puts his hand on his crotch so Jinyoung can make out the bulge of his cock under his fingers. Absently, he starts to trace it, makes out the head straining against his jeans, flicks his fingers over the shape. Even through the fabric, it feels warm against his palm, hard, possibly throbbing, and Jinyoung is overtaken by desire.

Sure, he thinks, Wonpil is attractive to him, sex with him is great, but it's been so long since he'd felt desire so purely, without restraint, without conditions. For years he's been using sex as a tool, and even when he'd enjoyed it, there had been a purpose, but for now he forgets himself, his restraints, forgets anything that might hold him back. It isn't Jinyoung that slides off the couch and kneels in front of Jaebum, it isn't Bambi that undoes Jaebum's belt or that runs his fingers along the hem, it's simply a body desiring another body. A lonely body wanting to fulfill its desires.

He palms Jaebum through his jeans, uses his fingers to trace the shape of his cock again. Without wanting to, his mouth waters, his tongue feels curious. His head buzzes with need. With a finger, he presses the middle, watches the bulge twitch and this twists his stomach; he suddenly needs this to live; he might die without it. 

After all, he'd seen hell, he'd seen heaven, and now he wants to see what else he can bring about. He looks up at Jaebum. Unflinching, he stares ahead, his jaw set, his expression blank, maybe annoyed, but when Jinyoung undoes the button of his jeans and tries to undo the zipper, Jaebum grabs his wrist, stops his hand. For a second, disembodied, without an identity, simply a body floating through the world, Jinyoung can admire the sight: Jaebum's shoulders in that loose, silk shirt, broad, both familiar and strange, and his thighs, thick and condensed, and his narrow waist, the jaw and chin that tilt forward now. And, after a second, he admires the shape of his eyes when Jaebum looks down at him, somewhere between anger and surprise, between annoyed and lustful.

Just as quickly as he looks down, though, he glances back up.

"Is he really — wow — he's kinky, huh?" Taecyeon says behind him. Jinyoung goes back to staring at Jaebum's groin, the bulge pressed against his thigh. He isn't himself anymore, he thinks, he carries no guilt, no history, just desire. Jaebum is still holding his wrist in place and Jinyoung wonders if he can lean forward and finish the job with his lips and his tongue, but just as soon as his neck tenses and he's about to find out, Jaebum talks and his stomach moves, the fabric of the shirt rustling, and Jinyoung feels warm. Desire pours into him in thick waves.

"As you can see, I'm busy — I need to get out of here."

"Yeah, sure seems like it —"

"Two months ago, you helped transport something for Junho."

The music keeps playing, the bass thumping, the lights are still a screaming blue but Jinyoung notices Taecyeon's silence. He looks up — the Jaebum he knows is back: blunt, direct, bored of dramatics.

"Yeah — yes, I did, but it wasn't just for Junho — what about it?"

"You were transporting something stolen from me. Where did it go?"

Again, the silence. Jaebum's grip loosens around his wrist and Jinyoung watches his hand move backwards, behind him, to where he'd placed his gun before coming in here. Jinyoung looks up, finally nervous, scared enough to remember who he is: not Jinyoung the police officer, not Bambi the mafia darling, but a coward. He lets his hands drag over Jaebum's thighs but he no longer feels hunger, just fear. It makes his heart race because Jaebum is slow but effective — his hand is already coming back around, already with the gun in hand. Jinyoung doesn't even have time to stand up.

"It went to a lot of places — come on, Jaebum, we're just having fun — we can talk about it later. You're gonna scare your fiance."

Jaebum doesn't waste time pointing his gun, aiming it. He doesn't hesitate, not anymore, but he still looks bored — this is easy to him. Starting from the bottom again has only made him impatient, no longer interested in entertaining the lower ranks. He knows what he wants, knows how to get it.

"You transported something that was stolen from me. I need to know where it went."

Taecyeon is silent again but Jinyoung feels the table behind him move. Something made of glass clatters on the table and Jinyoung realizes Taecyeon has stood up.

"Are you fucking kidding me, Jaebum? You come into my club and you threaten me?! You're asking about my business but pointing a fucking gun at me? At _me_?! I could have you executed right now — don't you see everyone around me?!"

"Just tell me where it went, Taecyeon, I'm tired of wasting my time."

"Oh, now I'm wasting your time?! I should fucking slit your throat —"

Jaebum never shoots, but Jinyoung hears gunfire. It's distant at first, but repetitive — not just one shot but a string of them, bouncing around in the walls, competing with the music. Then the music itself stops, leaves the club with nothing but the sound of screaming and another round of bullets.

"What the fuck?" Taecyeon says and Jinyoung looks to the side where the curtains have come apart and one of Taecyeon's men is standing, urging Taecyeon to come out.

Jaebum stops pointing his gun at Taecyeon, points it at the guard that came in and shoots — a simple, clean shot and Jinyoung watches the man fall forward on the ground, his head nearly hitting the table. The man's cheek hits the floor, and for a second he looks at Jinyoung. Their eyes meet and Jinyoung is sure he's going to puke, that his heart, after sinking to his stomach in fear, will come jumping out of his throat.

Then Taecyeon starts to yell again before this, too, is cut off, not by Jaebum's gun but by shots nonetheless. The curtains around them tremble from the gunfire and Jinyoung hears bullets ricochet in this fake little room, can see where holes tear into the velvet and then Taecyeon's body tumbles over the table.

He's still alive, Jinyoung knows, because he can see him mouthing words with no sound. Taecyeon falls so that his head hangs off the edge of the table and Jinyoung watches his eyes go from a vibrant fear to glazed and out of focus. He keeps mouthing words, each time slower and slower, until his mouth just hangs open and a trickle of blood slips out and drops of red splatter against the floor.

Jinyoung is frozen, his hands still on Jaebum's knees, his body still curved into the shape of desire that he no longer feels. It's Jaebum that reacts, that ducks his head, that grabs Jinyoung's upper arm and pulls him to the other side, away from Taecyeon's body. He tears his eyes away from his corpse and both him and Jaebum crawl to the floor, go around in front of the sofa Taecyeon was sitting in. Jaebum steadies his gun with one hand, pulls out his phone with the other, and Jinyoung, drowning in adrenaline, tries to make sense of what's happening.

There is yelling, of course, but it only comes from one side. They seem to be shooting at each other out there, beyond the curtains. One is a long string of shots that hit walls, that break glass, that cut some screams short and the others, in shorter bursts, seem to respond. They keep going like this, back and forth, until there is no screaming to drown out the yelling and Jinyoung hears a familiar voice. His spine is suddenly cold, his bones freezing.

"Where the fuck is he?! Where the fuck is Jaebum?!"

He keeps hearing this question in between gunfire, and the third time he hears it, he recognizes it. Jaebum has put his phone away again, looks at the makeshift door of the curtained room then at Jinyoung.

"Where the fuck is he?!"

There's the yelling again, and Jinyoung stomach's twist because that voice reminds him of so long ago.

"Is — is that —"

"Yugyeom," Jaebum finishes, sounding disappointed but not surprised.

Jinyoung remembers the last time he'd seen him: less than a body on the side of the road, more like a pile of bloody limbs they'd left behind, as if someone had found him in pieces and left him there to rot. And now here he is, wreaking havoc in hopes of avenging himself.

Jaebum still looks thoughtful, still looking at the break in the curtains, then at the bodies.

"Grab Taecyeon," he says and Jinyoung's heart stops.

"What?!"

"Grab him, we need some sort of shield. We're going out through the back, shortest way —"

"No, no, no — I'm not — I can't do that, I —"

Jinyoung freezes again, his fingers curling, stiffening at the thought of grabbing a dead body and when he looks back at Jaebum, he no longer has that blank expression. He's smiling — teasing and amused — and this makes Jinyoung's blood run cold again.

"Bambi, you've gotten soft," Jaebum mutters, as if there was nobody shooting outside, as if Jinyoung had just made a bad joke and he'd tried to console him. Jinyoung wants to scream, wants to rage, but mostly he wants to disappear and Jaebum, for the second time in his life, seems determined to get him out.

He nudges Jinyoung forward and they move, still squatting down, keeping low, their backs bent as the yelling stops and the shooting grows more sparse, each time closer to their section. The world they navigate through is still lit up in neon blue, but now it makes Jinyoung sick and dizzy. It makes him sway when Jaebum, without much struggle at all, pulls Taecyon up by the neck, ignores the blood that smears against his arm.

"Let's go," he says, and though in one hand he holds Taecyon against his body, and with the other he carries his gun, he still manages hook his arm around Jinyoung's neck.

It makes him feel useless seeing Jaebum do so much, seeing himself do so little. Then, like a flicker in the back of his mind, he thinks of Wonpil — if they die here, that means Wonpil dies elsewhere. And even if his loyalty is flimsy, if his character flits from one side to another so easily, he thinks that Wonpil doesn't deserve to die. That's the least he owes him, so when they step over the dead bodyguard, Jinyoung peels himself away from Jaebum and reaches down to pry the gun from his hands.

Jinyoung catches Jaebum watching him, still with interest but now with a hint of worry. He drags Taecyeon's body, holds it to his side, looks at Jinyoung one final time as the shooting resumes outside. Each shot rings in multiple places, ricocheting, making the scene that much more dangerous but Jinyoung feels, for once, ready. He holds the gun in both of his hands, points it forward, props the curtain open with his foot and steps out shooting.

And just like that, Bambi's back.


	4. loaded guns .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a...... mess.......

Outside of the curtained room, the nightclub is lit by flickering blue and red lights; this is why they keep shooting without aim, without a single side advancing. They can't see, can only shoot in the brief seconds the room flares up and even then it's hard to distinguish between dead bodies and those wriggling with fear on the dance-floor and those that might be advancing, bit by bit, their guns raised and pointed.

The club flares up in blue then goes dark. Every gun seems to go off and the room lights up with what look like a million cameras flashing. This is enough light for Jinyoung to make out the back hallway in the corner, glowing with some emergency lights and the distant exit sign. He doesn't bother to look back, simply crouches down as low as he can and half-runs, half-walks down the tiny bridge so he's on the edge of the dance-floor. His eyes squint every time one of the colored lights flash because after he has to avoid all the tiny sparks that bounce around in the dark — bullets ricocheting.

All of Taecyeon's guards seem intent on ending Yugyeom's force on the other side, and neither give a second glance to him or Jaebum until he's almost at the hallway, his gun catching the reflections of the lights there. After a spatter of bullets he hears Jaebum grunt and curse and when he turns, one of Taecyeon's men is moving — the room turns blue and Jaebum drops Taecyeon's body, grabs his hand. The man to his right — Jinyoung can almost see the realization slamming into his eyes — turns away from Yugyeom's men, lifts his gun to aim at Jaebum.

Then the room goes dark.

Jinyoung's body moves on its own — all impulse. He raises his gun, empties his clip, adds his own string of shots to the clatter of the room. Empty shells roll, bullets scatter, bounce off walls, desperate for a skull to puncture.

The room lights up in red and Jinyoung watches Taecyeon's guard — his ear missing, his neck spurting blood — crumple next to Jaebum, still gripping his hand. Everything happens in short flashes of motion: Jaebum holding his wrist, Jaebum sprinting, Jaebum a foot away. By the time the room lights up in blue again, Jaebum and him are stumbling down the hallway.

Youngjae is outside, the engine of the car running. The two guards at the door are lying still on the ground, their arms stretched, guns abandoned next to them, and that's when Jinyoung notices the gun in Youngjae's hand. His head is tipped forward, aiming.

Jinyoung fumbles with the handle and climbs inside. He barely has time to close the door before Youngjae puts his foot against the pedal and they screech out of the alley, speed down the road.

Once the club is nothing but a distant pulse, more of an echo than a sound, Jinyoung leans forward, looks at Jaebum's hand. Jaebum catches his eye and tries to hide his wrist but Jinyoung snatches it from him. There's a scratch on the side of his hand, some flesh missing — nothing serious, but painful. It just missed the center of his palm, where a scab has formed as thin, red line across it.

He looks up at Jaebum and catches his gaze: dark, full of shadows, but somehow softer than before. He looks back down at Jaebum's hand in his hold, wraps his fingers around Jaebum's wrist, the thin little bone jutting out.

"You need to disinfect this," Jinyoung says, calmer than he'd think he would be after having to dodge bullets in a shitty nightclub; after watching a few men die in front of his eyes; after fearing, for a second, that Jaebum might die along with them.

"It's nothing," Jaebum says, pulls his hand away, points his eyes at the road, "I'll deal with it at the hotel."

Jinyoung keeps his arms out, his fingers still twisted, as if holding the ghost of Jaebum's arm. He realizes his hands aren't shaking — that his heart, despite racing in the club, has cooled down. The adrenaline tapers away, layer by layer, but Jinyoung finds that he isn't scared. He isn't shaken. As if he's used to the violence.

And he might be — or, rather, Bambi might be — and it doesn't feel strange, but natural. It's natural to run across nightclubs turned into battlefields, it's natural to shoot strangers to save those he knows, it's natural to want to do it again until he's gotten what he wants: Wonpil.

But his life with Wonpil keeps growing more and more distant, distorted by time. It almost feels like that life had been a disguise; that there had never been Jinyoung the officer, Jinyoung the Spanish teacher, just Bambi undercover.

He leans back in his seat, no longer sure of who he is — who he wants to be. For now, he's complacent with being Bambi; a pretty boy with good aim; the whore that knows how to work a gun; the fiance of Jaebum the criminal.

Looking out of the window, he notices the blur of buildings growing more sparse, getting closer to the edge of the city.

"Where are we going?" he asks, then notices Jaebum scrolling his thumb across a bloody, cracked screen.

"New city, new hotel," Jaebum mutters. His thumb slows, hovers over a list of calls. "We're going to have to go contact by contact, see who this fucker helped to screw me over."

Jinyoung nods, then lifts his feet up on the empty seat next to him. Jaebum and Youngjae start talking about business again, plans, strategies, exchanging names and numbers to see if something familiar surfaces and Jinyoung is too tired to follow along. He leans his head against the window, looks at the sleeping night scenery outside one last time before his eyes close. He's asleep less than a minute later.

—

The hotel looks old on the outside, like an overgrown cottage. But, once inside, Jinyoung realizes it's part of the decor: the theme seems to be pastoral, each painting on the wall depicting a new scene of a young Jesus with a lamb, a hill with a shepherd on top, a cliff overlooking fields of grass and wheat. They don't bother with the desk, simply head over to the elevators. Jaebum has many hotel rooms in the area perpetually booked, it seems, always ready to rest wherever needed.

Despite the countryside theme, Jaebum's room looks modern: small, a little cramped, but everything is shiny and chrome, each piece of furniture sleek, designed down to its basics. There is no partition between the bathroom and the rest of the room. The carpet simply ends, gives way to tile; there is no tub, just a large shower encased in glass; the entire room visible, like a fish-tank.

Jinyoung steps inside, looks around with curious eyes as Jaebum goes across the hall to Youngjae's room to get his injuries wrapped. It's been so long since he's been in a hotel room; since he's traveled; since he's tasted a life of luxury. This is what his hands were meant for, he thinks, when he touches the silk sheets, when he runs his fingers through the soft towel, when he turns on the shower, slips off his expensive clothes to step under the warm spray of water. This is what his body is meant for: to gleam in the shower, his skin taut over each muscle, each ridge cluttered with soap. And, when Jaebum returns and sits on the edge of the bed, not facing away but directly in the direction of the shower, Jinyoung thinks that this is what he is meant for: to rinse away the soap using his hands, to run his fingers over his sides, the lines of his hips, the swell of his ass.

In the beginning, he used to close his eyes when Wonpil touched him and imagined Jaebum's hands. He used to imagine that it was Jaebum he sucked off under the table, that it was Jaebum that stretched him open with impatient fingers, that it was Jaebum he was gagging on. But Wonpil has always been too soft, the fantasy unraveled as quickly as it begun.

But now Jaebum is there, sitting in the dark, his eyes on him. The only light that's on is the one in the bathroom, which leaves Jaebum partly in the dark. When he leans back on the bed, he seems to disappear into the shadows, and Jinyoung can only see his silhouette as he undoes his jeans, kicks them off. His arm keeps moving, up and down, his hand joining the larger shadow of his body, and Jinyoung bites his lip as he washes the shampoo out of his hair, his body warm with possibility.

He'd ached for Jaebum's touch, had suffered through nights full of longing — it wasn't sex he wanted, but to feel Jaebum. He had always been so insistent, so brutal, so set on leaving his mark so Jinyoung felt empty without him. So fingers inside of him felt incomplete without Jaebum's rings bulging against his walls. So his legs felt bare without the outlines of Jaebum's fingers on his thighs, his calves, his hips, his ass.

He turns off the shower with a quiet whine, steps out of the shower hard, his cock already red, throbbing. It feels like he's been waiting for years, and for a second he imagines that those years had never been there; that he's stepping out of the shower in Havana; that Jaebum is still his, he still Jaebum's. He dries himself with the towel, refuses to look in the direction of the bed until he's ready to walk over there, uncertain of what he'll find.

Jaebum is still sitting there, and as Jinyoung steps closer, he notices he's naked; his legs are open, fingers wrapped around his cock; tugs lazily at it, absentmindedly, and Jinyoung, standing at the edge of the carpet, is breathless.

Before he knows it, he's on his knees in front of the bed, his fingers on Jaebum's thighs; the skin is hot under his fingers, the muscles tense, as if Jaebum is holding back. That's when Jaebum sits up and Jinyoung feels his thighs shift underneath his touch; he lets out the breath he'd been holding, looks up to meet Jaebum's dark gaze, darker now in the shadows. He can barely make out the sharp jaw, the bumped nose. He can barely make out his empty expression.

He looks back down, where Jaebum's cock has a single glint of light on the tip of his head — a bead of precum that Jinyoung wants to taste. He leans forward to take him in his mouth but Jaebum stops him with a hand. Jinyoung, already desperate with need, holding an appetite that knows no limit, sucks on Jaebum's fingers instead. He licks them hungry and sloppy, coats them with saliva, moans around them, tries to choke on them as if this were a test from Jaebum.

This is how he'll suck his cock, he tries to say, looks up with pleading eyes, Jaebum's fingers flat on his tongue.

But Jaebum doesn't seem to listen; he wipes his fingers on Jinyoung's cheek, then reaches behind him and pulls his gun out, points it at Jinyoung.

He isn't scared, no. He's become valuable to Jaebum again, knows he wouldn't shoot him. But he looks up at his eyes again, tries to read them but they're too dark, as dark as the shadow in the barrel pointed at him. He looks at the gun with interest and Jaebum pushes it forward, towards his lips, and he suddenly understands.

Jinyoung wraps his lips around the barrel, then locks his gaze with Jaebum's when he leans forward, starts to take the gun into his mouth like a slow, patient blowjob. His mouth fills with the taste of metal and he swipes his tongue forward, past his lips, hopes Jaebum can see the way he licks the cross-hatched sides of the gun. He keeps climbing down the length of it until he can no longer move his tongue, until it lays flat and Jinyoung tries to keep inching his lips down but he ends up gagging. He pulls off with a gasp, coughs into his arm after.

Then Jaebum stands up, says, simply, "Keep your mouth open."

As he stands, his cock swings between his legs — now softer than before — and Jinyoung wants nothing more than to take it into his mouth. His lips part, his tongue hangs out. He's desperate for what will come next but Jaebum doesn't guide his cock into his mouth. He doesn't fuck his throat, doesn't even pull his hair, doesn't do anything Jinyoung expects and he whines without control. A needy little sound that crawls out of his throat without him wanting it to, as if he's beyond control; as if he's beyond reasoning; beyond logic.

No matter who he's been — Jinyoung the agent, the teacher, or Bambi — his body had remained the same. And this body had never doubted what it wanted; this body always weakened at the sight of Jaebum; always ached with need; his blood always rushed in his direction, as if called.

And now, he sits up on his knees, looks like a dog on its back legs, his mouth open, his tongue flat and ready and Jaebum just hangs his head, looks into his eyes. Jinyoung's head thumps with his heartbeat and he's sure his eyes are watery and Jaebum simply opens his mouth and spits on him.

Most of it lands on his tongue, some of it on his nose, close enough that his eyes close and Jaebum spits two more times. There is no taste, not really, but Jinyoung still swishes it around his mouth just the same. He makes up the taste and spreads it over his teeth, the roof of his mouth, swallows the rest of it as if coating his throat. He doesn't clean the spit off his face, but manages to open his eyes.

Jaebum is unreadable, just a pair of dark eyes, a handsome, blank face, a body that looks so large from this angle — impossibly wide shoulders, a narrow waist, an image that hypnotizes, that erases Jinyoung's thoughts so that he no longer doubts; he is all impulse; a needy body; a restless body; a demanding body; a body that begs for Jaebum.

But Jaebum never gives himself up, not that easily. Even now, in this room, standing over a kneeling Jinyoung, his cock hard and throbbing, so near to Jinyoung that the heat radiating off it hits his cheek, Jaebum does not give up any piece of his mind beyond the growl of his voice.

"Get on the bed. Face-down."

Jinyoung scrambles to the bed, gets on all fours. He presses his forehead against the sheets, lifts his hips. He even reaches back with his hands and pulls his ass cheeks apart, open. He's sure that Jaebum's cock comes next — maybe even his tongue — and his hole tightens with the memory of him. With the ghost of his cock fucking him senseless so many times, in so many places.

Nothing warm touches him, though. Jaebum spits into his ass a few times and clumsy fingers try to coat his hole with it, push in for a brief moment, but mostly round about his rim. Jinyoung, his forehead pressed against the sheets, starts to mewl and wriggle his hips and he can't wait anymore.

"Please," he moans and for a second there is silence. He can't hear anything but his own breathing, shallow and expectant, and then something cold presses up against his hole. It pushes in, stretches him farther than what's comfortable and Jinyoung squeezes his eyes shut and opens his mouth to scream in pain but nothing comes out. Jaebum presses the gun further into him and Jinyoung gasps into the sheets; his eyes fly open, already wet and teary; his walls feel over-stretched, pushed to their limit; the shape of the gun, although thinner than most, is uncomfortable inside of him. Pain shoots up his back and spreads around his limbs, every nerve suddenly aware, defensive. His entire body stiffens and he pulls away his hands to grip the sheets because Jaebum is set on shoving the whole thing inside of him.

Then Jaebum starts to pull it out and Jinyoung relaxes with relief, starts to breathe again, and just when it's out of him — when the soreness is starting to settle, replacing the immediate pain — Jaebum shoves it back in, faster this time. Jinyoung spits out his last breath then collapses; he doesn't grip the sheets; he doesn't hold up his torso, his shoulders, his head. His cheek presses against the bed and he focuses on how he pulses all over, his entire body a heartbeat centered at his hips. Jaebum holds him up with a hand to his hip, barely keeping him from tipping over. Jinyoung's knees are still digging into the bed, his body still holds some form, but beyond that, Jinyoung is lost.

Just as the pain becomes unbearable, he goes numb, as if he's been dropped in freezing water. He goes numb from the neck down and when he closes his eyes, he sees a swirl of colors against a dark background. He might pass out, he thinks. He might faint. He might die, even, but Jaebum pulls out the gun and then spanks his ass with a harsh hand and Jinyoung's senses return. Now they center on the burn on his ass cheek, on the print that forms in a screaming red; then Jaebum spanks him again, this time on the other side, and Jinyoung focuses on that, his eyes watering, his throat full of a mewl without no shape. His voice spills out of him, as if it, too, were exhausted; as if he doesn't have the strength to hold it in.

He gasps when Jaebum spanks him again, then shuts his eyes when he does it again. And again, and again, and again. The pain from inside seems to shift to the skin outside and he knows that this is punishment; that Jaebum doesn't have to say anything; that Jaebum still wants him, but wants him to know his place — that this is how Jaebum talks, and Jinyoung listens with his body, all of his nerves flared and sensitive. His ass stinging, skin burning, his fingers nearly ripping into the sheets as he grips on to stay lucid and awake despite the wave of pain that threatens to push him into the unconscious. His entire body sweats, so much that Jaebum's hands almost slide off him.

But this pain is a gift — he hasn't felt so grounded in so long. There is no future, there is no past, there is only the throbbing hand-prints on his ass, there is only Jaebum's hands spreading his cheeks, his grip rough even in this. There is only the sudden warmth of Jaebum shoving his entire cock into him in one thrust, the momentary sting, his insides almost ripping with the sudden intrusion. There is only the hot strands of cum that climb up Jinyoung's walls, and there is only Jaebum's warm figure pressed against the back of his legs and ass as he waits for his orgasm to finish. His cock throbs inside of him, his cum painting his insides, filling Jinyoung like he'd dreamed just a few years ago.

Then he goes to pull out and Jinyoung thinks it might be the end of it but Jaebum's hands return to his ass.

"Hold it all in," Jaebum mutters and uses his finger to push the stray strands of cum that leak out back into Jinyoung. He tries to do as he's told, tightens so that nothing spills out and Jaebum keeps pushing it back in and it sounds wet; a second later, he spits into it and tries to shove that into him, too.

Jinyoung clenches and tightens and hungrily takes all that he's given, tries to retain it all until Jaebum pats his hips and gives him permission to collapse on his side. He stretches his legs, squeezes his ass as Jaebum collapses on the bed, too. Jaebum stretches out on his back, fits his hands behind his head.

They haven't talked about anything out loud but Jinyoung feels that so much has been said — that they have spoken about things that don't have words, not yet. So he doesn't question anything out loud, just crawls to Jaebum's side, does his best to curl into a small shape at his side without letting the cum out of him. He fails, of course, and he feels it dribble down his thighs, at the cleft, down his ass cheeks but he is satisfied with what remains inside of him, wet and heated.

He stretches an arm around Jaebum's chest, and Jaebum wraps an arm around his waist.

Nothing has changed, he thinks, and when he looks at Jaebum's chest, he sees the familiar locket — the one he'd been given on a sandy beach three years ago.

He opens his mouth to ask where he'd found it but Jaebum lifts a finger to his lips, quieting him. On instinct, he kisses the tip of his fingers, pecks them, then sucks gently on the edges, even grazes his teeth against them.

This is how they fall asleep: both naked, Jinyoung curled and nestled in Jaebum's hold, his head against his shoulder; Jinyoung leaking Jaebum's warm cum, his lips wrapped loosely around Jaebum's fingers; Jaebum's heartbeat drumming against Jinyoung's ears, first anxious and excited, then slower, more paced, and then, finally, at peace.

—

The questions in his throat don't disappear, though. He wakes up naked and curled up under a thin sheet, alone in bed. He wrestles out of it, yawning, stretching his body; moving reminds him of the pain between his legs, of the dried cum and spit between his ass cheeks; inside, he feels a certain wetness, but he can't sure if it's real or imagined.

He keeps unfolding and stretching like a cat and then he sits up in time to see Jaebum leave the shower. He towels his hair, and Jinyoung takes that moment to study Jaebum: not as large when looked at straight on, but larger than before; his thighs look thicker, the right one imprinted with a dragon; his chest is more squared; his arms bulging. Must have had time to work out in prison, Jinyoung thinks, and this pains him. Jaebum does not look his way, instead goes to the short table in front of the bed, retrieves the locket from yesterday. He clips it on behind his neck, lets the towel fall.

Jinyoung's hand goes to his chest, at its center, as if expecting the locket to be there. He had worn it for an entire year, waiting for Jaebum to return to him, sure that, somehow, this would be the light to guide him home. But months of silence had worn him down, and he'd been forced to take it off; he'd buried it with the memory of Jaebum, beneath the trinkets from another life, beneath papers, swallowed in shadows where he'd be sure to forget. Jaebum must have looked everywhere, he thinks; when he'd fainted; when he'd had nothing to do but poke around Jinyoung's new life.

Still, he asks, "Where did you find it?"

Jaebum turns to face him. His expression is still blank, guarded; not like someone who's hiding something but someone who's simply forgotten — forgotten Jinyoung is there, forgotten about the necklace around his neck, forgotten about the entire room that surfaces now, suddenly, to remind him.

"You're not good at hiding," he says, then moves across the room to the chair he's put his clothes on, "You didn't have that many things."

He curls up in bed, hugs his knees to his chest. Without the heat from last night, he's forced to think clearly. Wonpil is no longer a distant memory but slithers to the surface. Guilt wrenches his gut, matches the throbbing pain between his hips. The choice is always there, waiting for him, teasing him, but he tries to hold off for a bit longer. Tries to pretend it's not there. Tries to live in this moment where he's on a soft bed watching Jaebum pull on his underwear.

"How did you know I kept it?"

At this, Jaebum turns to look at him again. Stern, black eyes; a tense jaw. He looks mad.

"I didn't."

Jinyoung stretches out his legs, hears a bone crack. He wonders if his picture is still in the locket, opposite of Jaebum's mother, rattling in gold against Jaebum's chest. Where his heart would be. He wants to ask, too, but communication had never been the best between them. Jaebum spoke mostly in silence, and Jinyoung, well, he kept most things to himself; hoarding all of his secrets; like a balloon just waiting to burst.

After Jaebum gets dressed, he stands at the corner of the bed. They gaze at each other — Jinyoung still sitting on the bed, his legs spread out, his arms propping him up — and say nothing for a long time. But Jinyoung feels something flicker between them, curling in front of their eyes like smoke.

"Bambi," Jaebum says and Jinyoung stops breathing. Jaebum's voice is like an incantation, and Bambi, whoever that might be, rushes up, like a fish breaking the surface. But something else arrives, too: a kind of pain, disappointment. He is so many people at once, he thinks — he has no firm allegiance, has no idea of who he is, who he should be. He is a boat with a single sail: carried along by any wind, pulled this way and that, with no will of his own.

It's always easier this way, to let others make choices. To follow orders, to want what they want. Mark, then Jaebum, then Wonpil; the men before them. So many people had come into his heart only to leave that the hinges on the door are rusted and worn and each entry and exit is painful, but Jinyoung has never been smart enough to lock the door. He let them all in, let them set up traps and break windows and they left their trash behind, broken dishes, little fires that burned longer than the memories lasted.

But with Jaebum, he'd fought to keep him inside. Much too late, yes, but he'd waited by the door, his hand on the knob, his fingers ready to lock him inside when he returned. He never did.

Instead he waited to come back when Jinyoung, weary, rebuilding himself, had let another into his heart — the final one. A man who showed no signs of leaving; who was steady and careful; who had the presence of a ghost. He could never be damaged by him, but he couldn't be moved, either. Loving Wonpil was loving him in a beautiful silence: nothing ever changed, for better of for worse. They simply existed.

And he remembers this as his toes curl. Remembers this when Jaebum reaches forward and clasps his fingers around Jinyoung's ankle, pulls up his foot, presses his lips against the sole of it, then his ankles, then the inside of his calf, each time pulling Jinyoung closer and closer to the edge of the bed. The sheets rustle under him, slide beneath the curve of his bottom as Jaebum tugs him to the edge of the bed. Each kiss sends flutters up his legs and softens the pain in his ass but Jinyoung looks away.

It feels like there's an argument inside of him, like different pieces are fighting over what he wants. He feels pulled in so many directions, haunted by so many ghosts, each second bringing him closer to a sudden break.

He tenses and pulls his foot away and Jaebum lets it drop. His eyes return to that cold stare he's been wearing.

Jinyoung feels guilty, but he pulls his knees to his chest again, keeps out of Jaebum's reach. He swallows the knot in his throat.

"We have to go," Jaebum says, "To the first lead. Be ready in an hour."

"Where is it?"

"You'll see."

He tries to nod, but his body is still. He's frozen in place, pinned under Jaebum's gaze like a fly caught in a web, cursed to watch the spider approach. Inside his chest, his heart starts to tremble.

Then, swimming out of the back of his head, escaping before Jinyoung can catch it, a question comes out, "If you knew where I was, why didn't you say anything? Why did you let me think you were gone for good?"

Jaebum's jaw tenses again.

"Did you just want me to fucking text you from prison? Sure — let me just pick up the fucking phone, I have to call my man — god, Jinyoung, don't be so childish."

"But you did make contact! You had contact with Youngjae! You just had to tell me one fucking word so I could have waited instead of trying to move on. I got so tired of waiting, Jaebum — it isn't fair."

Jaebum doesn't respond, but he cools down. His fist unravels, his jaw softens. He looks unnaturally calm — scarily calm — and Jinyoung swallows again, this time in fear. He can feel the rest of his words in his throat, waiting to be let out, but they sink instead; Jaebum shows no sign of continuing this argument. He looks tired, resigned. He shakes his head.

"You're right about those things," Jaebum says with a tiny laugh; he lifts a hand to take the locket between his fingers, "You could have waited, and it isn't fair. None of it is."

He shakes his head one more time then leaves Jinyoung alone in the room to contemplate everything. In the cellar of his heart, where he's pushed in the shadows and old wrecks of different romances, the ghosts start to laugh.

—

An hour later, Jinyoung slips inside the car, showered and dressed in more expensive clothing. The afternoon has swallowed the morning, but they are still hours away from their destination: a neighboring city, wealthy and quiet.

With Youngjae at the wheel, Jinyoung has no hope of talking to Jaebum again or pulling apart each other's feelings like machinery, laying out each part in front of them to understand how everything works, or even why it works. Instead he grapples the emotion alone.

It seems so simple, really. He wants Jaebum, that much is clear; wants him in every way; wants the danger attached to him, the softness of his touch; both his growls and his whispers; an entire world wrapped in a sturdy body. He wanted to live with Jaebum, too, no matter how short their lives.

In Wonpil, though, he'd found the life he craved: something simple, carefree. Something as easy as breathing. And after three years, it became so easy to think that he never wanted Jaebum — not the way he was. Not with the guns surrounding him, with the threat of danger clouding every second; hiding around every corner; the lack of trust, the instability. As exciting as it is, Jinyoung is tired.

He's growing older, and with age comes a new horizon complete with dazzling new fantasies. He wants to go back to his hometown, wants to see his parents again — wants to know that they're alive, even — and he wants to take someone home. He wants to escape this complicated trap he's set up for himself, wants to take off every disguise, wants to be himself for once. Even if he isn't sure of who that might be.

It's childish, he knows, to look at all the possible lives he could live and not want to choose. He wants them all, somehow. Wants to be all these people at once, at his will. He wants the impossible.

His thoughts start to dizzy him, his focus stumbling like a drunk. He thinks, instead, of the pain between his legs, how it throbs with the memory of the gun shoved inside of him; he wriggles his hips and he's still raw, and part of him likes it. There are welts on his ass, and these sting, too, when he sits up in his seat. He had checked the hand-prints in the mirror this morning, the outline of Jaebum's fingers and palm still clinging to his skin; he had put his own hand in it, easily filling the shape, but not the sensation. Only Jaebum's touch fills him with flutters, only his force is electric and addicting.

Thinking of it now, Jinyoung's stomach gets heavy.

"Are we almost there?" he asks and Jaebum snorts.

"A few more hours," Youngjae says. Jinyoung shifts in his seat, presses his head against the window; he watches the scenery pass by, some of it blurred, some of it slow in the distance. The sky is a clean blue, perfect except for the hint of clouds in the distance. His eyes close, and bit by bit, his senses turn off until he's swimming in the sky, fast asleep.

—

"Can I talk to you?" Jinyoung says after Youngjae drops them off in front of what looks like a jewelry store. The rest of the neighborhood seems turned off, every shop closed, only the streetlamps buzzing above them. The buildings look like overgrown miniatures — buildings that look old, movie-like with cobblestone roads and curved roofs and windows with old-fashioned signs painted directly on them.

"Not now," Jaebum says, looks at the cracked phone then up at the sign again, "We're busy."

"Quick," Jinyoung says, tries to hold on to Jaebum's arm but he tugs it away, "Please, Jaebum. I — we have to talk about this."

"I said not now." His voice is a hiss, and even if the warm glow from the shop bathes them in gold, Jaebum looks soaked in shadows.

"Please —"

Jaebum cuts him off, grabs the front of his shirt with his fist.

"I said not fucking now — not everything revolves around what you want."

Still, Jinyoung's face twists into a frown, and though he feels childish for whining, he does anyway.

"Please, Jaebum — think of me. Think of what I'm going through."

Jaebum leans close, close enough that he can see how his nostrils flare; how each word is said through gritted teeth.

"I do nothing but think of you. That's what gets me in trouble." He looks like he might say more, and his grip on Jinyoung's shirt tightens for emphasis but then he swallows, his expression softens. He lets go of the shirt and stands up again, looks to the side, then down at their shoes, and finally back at Jinyoung's eyes. "After. We can talk after."

They enter the jewelry store with Jinyoung smiling, Jaebum's arm wrapped loosely around his waist. The room is small and square and has three rows of glass counters displaying different jewelry. There's a single person inside, on the other side of the counter, a young woman with a wide, enthusiastic smile standing in front of a computer. Her head tilts when she sees them, as if recognizing them — as if they were old friends. But if she knows them, she doesn't say.

"How can I help you?"

"We're looking for an engagement ring," Jaebum says, pulling Jinyoung forward, "For my fiance. Something very special."

The word 'fiance' rattles around in Jinyoung's head, makes him light and giddy. He knows it's fake but he can't help but imagine what that life would be like: a wedding, a retreat to the beach, maybe a forest; a moment of calm; a bed to rest their head on. He shakes his head as if the images might fall out, but the fantasy remains; he keeps seeing a future where there is none, an endless road where there's only a dead end.

Still, for the sake of acting, he keeps his smile painted on. His eyes are bright, though; he doesn't have to fake that part.

"Sure — congratulations," the woman says, "Is there anything specific you're looking for?"

Jinyoung shrugs and when Jaebum pulls his arm away from his waist, he steps closer to the glass, presses his fingers over it. There are so many rings — some studded with diamonds, some with emeralds, some gold, some silver — and he is overwhelmed. It's been so long since he's seen so many expensive things at once, and he knows that Jaebum's collection rivals this one — or used to. He wonders if the jewels are still there, at his loft; wonders if the loft itself is there, which makes him realize he'd never asked. How had Jaebum been living? What did he have to give up?

The joy from before becomes tainted with guilt, but Jaebum presses up behind him and presses his chest against Jinyoung's back, his hips against his bottom, his hands gripping his waist. He plants a kiss against his neck, then rests his chin against his shoulder. His figure is warm against his own, and every worry melts away.

This is his fiance, he lies to himself. They are a couple and they have an apartment to come home to. One of these rings will be his, a wedding awaits them in the future after years of dating. They have never been apart, they have normal jobs nearby. Jinyoung teaches. Jaebum reads the newspaper. In a month they will fly to meet Jinyoung's parents, and in another month they will be married. They are normal. They are sweet. They are happy.

"I want something very special," Jaebum says and Jinyoung wants nothing more than to stay there, pinned between Jaebum's crotch and the display glass; they can't be hurt here in this tiny shop, with a smiling woman in front of them, unfazed by how tangled Jaebum and Jinyoung become.

He takes Jaebum's hands, moves them to his stomach so Jaebum hugs him tight; there's still pain in his hips, but having Jaebum so close sweetens it. As if it's no longer a symbol of hurt, but a promise for more.

"I think I have something you might like." Jinyoung looks up as the woman bends down and takes out what looks like a tiny scanner, just big enough to fit his hand in. He looks at her name tag — Nayeon — and goes to ask what it is, but she takes his hand before he can. She spreads his fingers out tenderly inside the machine, then presses a button on its side.

The machine scans him, one blue line moving from his wrist to the tip of his stretched fingers.

"What is that?" Jaebum asks.

"It's to get the perfect measurements for the rings," Nayeon answers, smiling again as she checks her screen, "What makes jewelry special is that it's made for a single person. What's your price range?"

Jinyoung hums at the question, tries to imagine a number until Jaebum says, "The most expensive. I'm looking for something... unique. Something hard to come by."

Nayeon takes a moment looking at them both, then she nods. She guides them to the edge of the counter where the glass ends; where there's a tiny wooden door and she urges them in, heads to the door in the corner of the wall. Though there is no door, just a curtain of beads — a blue light glows from the other side.

"I have just the thing, come in," she calls before she disappears behind the curtains. Jaebum pulls away and Jinyoung whines so they walk hand in hand, Jaebum leading the way, his fingers tight around Jinyoung's palm.

And walking feels like floating — he's sure he's never been as excited for the future; even if this future is made out of paper, complete with paper rings, paper moons, paper weddings, paper love.

They walk past the tiny wooden door and go towards the beaded curtain. Jaebum goes in first, then Jinyoung. They both freeze on the other side.

Nayeon's smile is gone, though he can barely tell behind the shotgun she's pointing at them — there are three other women around them, each pointing a gun in their direction. Jaebum reaches for his hip but Nayeon aims the shotgun at him instead and that's when Jinyoung notices that until then, every gun had been pointed at him.

He swallows, tries not to cry.

"We just —"

Nayeon cuts Jaebum off, "Why the fuck did you bring a cop in here? The Interpol, too. You must be looking for trouble."

"I'm not—" he tries to defend himself, but Nayeon shouts over him.

"Take them in — Sana!"

He hears the beads behind them rustle, then something smashes against his head and he's out.


End file.
